Talk:Timothy O'Neill (camoufleur)

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• Operational Camouflage Pattern (OCP), Scorpion W2 swatch.jpg

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Designer of MARPAT

This source published by the US Army and written by Sgt. Vincent Fusco, West Point Directorate of Public Affairs & Communications, says O'Neill "designed the Marine Corps' MARine PATtern, or MARPAT camouflage and worked with the Marines, Army, Office of Naval Research and Program Executive Office Soldier on various studies and adaptations of texture match." User Zeck8541 says this is wrong, that we need to disambiguate "between involvement in MARPAT design and his initial involvement in early digital patterns. This is confirmed by listing by the US Patent Office." He further states, "He was never involved in the program. Also please reference US Patent listing for MARPAT which does not bear his name among the design team. Also reference this published article about the design program which verifies he was not a member of the design team or process. https://www.militarymorons.com/misc/camo.html"

There are a couple problems with Zeck8541's approach. He is asking us to do WP:Original research by looking at patent records to override a reliable secondary source (the army.mil article). This is not how Wikipedia works, we look at secondary sources and don't use primary sources (patent records), particularly for BLPs see WP:BLPPRIMARY, to arrive at conclusions not stated in reliable secondary sources. Also the absence of his name on a patent record doesn't mean anything, maybe he didn't want to be on the patent, or his role didn't qualify him to be on the patent. Also that militarymorons.com site is an unreliable source according to Wikipedia standards, and even it it was, it doesn't say anything about O'Neill nor does it give credit to who the design team was (other than two snipers), it's an unverified unpublished personal story from a private email - completely unreliable, anyone can say anything. One thing it does say is "the US Army was actually the first to work with digital camo patterns in the 1970s," and that may be the kernel of truth we could research further.

Surely there must be something about it in a book? -- GreenC 14:09, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

This Slate article (search on "Neill") gives more background on O'Neill's early role with pixelated camo. All sources agree on one point: O'Neill invented the first pattern of pixelated camo in 1976, which he named “Dual-Tex”. The Army didn't do anything with his research, but the Canadians did, who adopted it and named it CADPAT. Tests showed it beat existing US camo patterns and so the US Marine Corps approached the Canadians who gave them the pattern but with different colors. MARPAT came about. (Source). -- GreenC 15:40, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Secondary sources, as you say that Wikipedia uses instead of primary sources, I will list here that prove my story that I am right. First of all, My name is Kenneth G. Henley and I was the first member of the MARPAT design team. So, I am speaking not only from personal experience, but I can give sources that verify my information. The army.mil article that is being used here as the source, is incorrect information resulting from poor research by the article writer. Just because a single, solitary, one mention in the entire history of the world, that O'neill was a member of the pattern design team, is wrong. He was not. What he was a member of, was the team that designed the cut and shape of the textile uniform. He has absolutely no involvement with the new pattern design. Here is the fist source, published on a web page of my story.

Here is a published story from military.com of my involvement and history of the development of MARPAT. O'Neill's name was not mentioned, because he was not on the team. I never met him or heard of him in my life until coming across this Wikipedia page.(this article should probably be added to the Wiki page as a reference, but I am unsure as how to do that)

https://www.military.com/off-duty/2020/10/12/how-ralph-lauren-paint-became-one-of-most-dominant-colors-military.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1Ky5K077ghQXbBNoEc-1wFOVuweTs4Uiwf4Q8dFulMckhXp4KWk_6Q0_U#Echobox=1602535899

There are two United States Patents listed for MARPAT. One for the design of the pattern itself. This patent does not include O'Neill's name. This is because he was not involved.

The first patent without O'Neill's name:

https://patents.google.com/patent/USD491372

The second United States Patent includes his name because of his previous work on digital patterns, even though he had no involvement in the MARPAT program.

The second patent with O'Neill's name:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US6805957

It is this ambiguation that has caused some people to confuse his involvement in the design of digital patterns from the 1970s with the actual design of MARPAT that took place through 2000-2001, of which he was not a member. Zeck8541 (talk) 02:48, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

First of all, thank you for your service, assuming you are who you claim to be. (Wikipedia gets a lot of fakery because it is so influential in search results and now AI there are real-world things at stake so we need to be careful.) The military.com source is more detailed than the army.mil story. It also reinforces things read elsewhere. I am willing to agree with you the army.mil article is less reliable where the two article disagree we could give weight to the military.com article. The Wikipedia rules are strict about using the primary source of the patents because this is a BLP (Biography of a Living Person) so they can't be cited in the article; nevertheless we can weigh it on the talk page here in deciding how to proceed per WP:COMMONSENSE. It's late and I am going to bed but I want to search for more sources about O'Neill as the next step to make sure the army.mil article is a one-off mistake, or anything else about his involvement. Then try to rephrase it based on what we know about O'Neill. -- GreenC 06:05, 14 August 2023 (UTC)

According to a New York Times article:

"In 2002, the Marines adopted a uniform inspired by the digital camouflage idea [invented by O'Neill in the 70s], with a pixel pattern that gave soldiers the look of video-game characters. O’Neill, who retired in 2001, found himself working on the project. “I helped the Marine Corps out,” he says, “particularly on the physical descriptions for patent rights.”"

-- GreenC 02:54, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes. That is what appears to be correct. However, his appearance into the program was for the MCCUU (Marine Corps Combat Utility Uniform). This was the physical design of the cut and layout of the new uniform, which was a new design that MARPAT would be applied to. He did not help in the design of the camouflage pattern.

Again, you can distinguish the two by looking into the patent links again. If you look at the second patent I linked below. It is for the uniform and not the pattern applied to it. Here is the Wiki page for the MCCUU.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_Combat_Utility_Uniform

This is where I think we need to relocate the credit given to O'Neill so that it is effectively disambiguated.

This proves out in the following ways. You have me, supported by publication...knowing the history of the design of the pattern. That did not involve O'Neill. Then, you have the MCCUU patent with his name among the other names and the statements that he was involved in the project. By the time O'Neill appears into the picture, the pattern of MARPAT was already finished. What wasn't finished, were the prototypes of the MCCUU that the pattern of MARPAT would be applied to.

If we can get this cleared up between the MCCUU and MARPAT pages, then I feel we will have served well. Zeck8541 (talk) 03:51, 15 August 2023 (UTC)

User:Zeck8541, changes have been made to the article. Could you review? It currently has nothing concerning MCCUU and MARPAT. Maybe it could quote the NYT about helping the Marine Corp with patent rights for the MCCUU. -- GreenC 17:08, 14 December 2023 (UTC)